Book Review: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Tessa Lowell left Fayette, Pennsylvania, when she was just 9 years old, moving to Florida with her grandmother. Now she's a recent high school graduate and heading back to town to say goodbye to her dying father. With no family in town anymore, Tessa stays with the family of her former friend Callie, which is pretty awkward since she and Callie haven't spoken since they were little. Being with Callie also brings up questions that Tessa has held onto for the years since she's been gone. Questions about the testimony the young girls gave that sent a man to death row. I don't read many young adult novels, but The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas was touted as "the next twisted psychological thriller," so I decided to give it a try... and I'm glad I did. While the story moves relatively slowly, there's a lot of mystery and twists throughout. There are really two storylines moving through it; one about the man on death row and one about Tessa trying to reconnect with her family. This brought complexity to the novel ~ in a good way. It gave the reader more to follow and figure out, more to engage with.It's hard to review mysteries and thrillers because you don't want to give away too many of the secrets that inevitably exist in the novel. This one has a lot of twists. I will say that the characters were okay but Tessa was sometimes annoying in how she would not speak up for herself or trust anyone ~ to an extreme. And some of the situations that the teens got into seemed a little unrealistic, although I'm not the mother of a teen yet so maybe I'm naive. In general, though, I enjoyed The Darkest Corners. It kept me interested through the end, and provided a few surprises along the way.

Comments

This sounds like a good one - I hadn't heard about it yet (and I read a LOT of YA!) - the plot sounds intriguing. I like twisty thrillers. But I know what you mean about annoying characters - drives me crazy when characters in fiction won't tell each other stuff and/or keep secrets and/or tell lies - but that is kind of at the center of most fiction, isn't it?

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